Reason TV: 5 facts that will keep you from committing sequestration seppuku

posted at 2:01 pm on February 27, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

On the verge of panic over the Sequestration That Ate The Beltway? Afraid the world will come to an end on Friday because the federal government might not get every dollar it wants to spend? Reason TV’s Nick Gillespie and Meredith Bragg ride to your rescue with this short video explaining that the sequester is nowhere near the draconian intervention that Barack Obama tells us it is, and in fact, it’s nothing more than a good start in the right direction:

Be sure to read all five reasons, but number 4 stands out:

4. You Can’t Cut Nonexistent Programs!

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget says the sequester will cut a whopping $2 million from the $20 million budget for the National Drug Intelligence Center. That sounds pretty bad – until you realize the Drug Intelligence Center closed its door in June 2012.

Maybe we should postpone the apocalypse until after the Obama administration demonstrates that it knows what’s actually in the budget, huh?

To give another perspective, let’s look at an editorial cartoon from earlier this week by Investors Business Daily’s Michael Ramirez. The supposedly “massive” cuts are coming from a much larger pie — and amount to just crumbs of the annual deficit:

Also, be sure to check out Ramirez’ terrific collection of his works: Everyone Has the Right to My Opinion, which covers the entire breadth of Ramirez’ career, and it gives fascinating look at political history. Read my review here, and watch my interviews with Ramirez here and here. And don’t forget to check out the entire Investors.com site, which has now incorporated all of the former IBD Editorials, while individual investors still exist.

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OMG the Republicans are going to take away my free stuff on Friday!
(typical parasite attitude after a solid week of fearmongering about sequestration)

I don’t know how we compete against such stupidity but I’m through with being nice to the very stupid people who know and care more about pop culture than they do about the generational theft being perpetrated by the Democrats.

I don’t know how we compete against such stupidity but I’m through with being nice to the very stupid people who know and care more about pop culture than they do about the generational theft being perpetrated by the Democrats.

Happy Nomad on February 27, 2013 at 2:27 PM

That’s why the only charities that I donate to anymore are for veteran groups like Wounded Warriors and Homes for Our Troops. Unfortunately I don’t know how much longer I can continue that.

Who’s land is this? I think I know,
T’is different from not very long ago
When Nature’s God gave us our rights
If threatened, that meant lot of fights’
But now, a ho here and a hum there
While they dismantle freedom, everywhere
With condoms free and lunches too
The mention of God is now met with a boo
And our leaders think servitude better for us,
That constitution thing? Under the bus.
But we did it all, we’ve no one to blame.
America’s gone–T’is more than a shame.

The only problem with Ramirez’ editorial cartoon is that there is no federal budget.

Also, note federal spending has increased 40% in just 6 years. That’s an annual increase of 6% per year. How many people have seen annual 6% salary increases over that period. IIRC, the “official” inflation rate has been under 2%/yr over that time.

Using all those numbers, 6% of $3.8 trillion is $228 billion. So a “decrease” in spending of $85 billion this year really means, roughly, only “increasing” federal spending by $153 billion this year instead of by $228 billion. Oh, the horror!

Brilliant. Growing the pie is usually a good thing… That’s what businessmen and entrepreneurs do. This unfortunately isn’t really growing the pie, it’s taking other pieces of food and forcibly assimilating them into the pie so that there’s less dinner and breakfast to be had.

Obama is the Borg, and like the Borg, his goal is “achieving perfection”. In this case he won’t stop until the only food left on the table is one big pie, and he’s the one with the pie cutter in his hand…

If Congress and the pResident limited future spending to FY 2007 dollar amounts, our monthly spending and monthly revenue would be close to balanced.

We would still have a large deficit for FY 2013 because they’ve already been spending at the 40% higher levels for nearly 5 months of the Fiscal Year, but at least we’d be on the right track moving forward.

The only problem with Ramirez’ editorial cartoon is that there is no federal budget.

I think he’s using the OMB numbers which reflect Obama’s FY 2013 budget proposal, even though no budget has been passed by the Senate, and the Senate has not voted on the budget that the Republican House passed.

Also, note federal spending has increased 40% in just 6 years. That’s an annual increase of 6% per year.

farsighted on February 27, 2013 at 2:39 PM

Rather than increase it by a steady 6% per year, what actually happened is that in FY 2008, the Nancy Pelosi House and Harry Reid Senate (which included Obama, Biden, Clinton, etc.) increased spending to $3 Trillion (and roughly tripled the annual deficit to $459 Billion) over FY 2007’s $2.7 Trillion spending and $161 Billion deficit. Yes, President Bush should have vetoed that, but he didn’t.

And then, in FY 2009, the Nancy Pelosi House and Harry Reid Senate increased spending to $3.5 Trillion (and roughly tripled the annual deficit AGAIN to $1,413 Billion a.k.a $1.4 TRILLION) over FY 20078. And President Bush never had the opportunity to veto that, because Pelosi and Reid held the budget until Obama was in office and let Obama sign the budget on March 11, 2009. Obama also signed the “Stimulus”, “Cash for Clunkers”, credits for first-time homebuyers, etc., all in FY 2009.

Pelosi, Reid, and Obama did everything in their power to maximize spending in FY 2009, and then… BLAMED BUSH FOR IT ALL.

To this day, there are stories done with graphs that paint FY 2009 spending red for Bush, even though the majority of blame for FY 2009 spending belongs to the Democrats. Obama can’t honestly claim that he “inherited a mess”….

Obama became part of the Democratic majority on January 3, 2007, when Democrats toook control of the House and Senate.

And what did Senators Obama, Biden, Clinton, Reid, etc. and Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats “inherit” when the balance of power shifted on January 3, 2007?

They inherited a GOOD economy and a SHRINKING deficit! Largely due to the economic growth that followed the 2003 Bush Tax Cuts, Revenues grew and Deficits shrank in FY 2005, 2006, and 2007.

Then the Democrats took over, raised the minimum wage three times in three years, brought the recovery to a halt, and then the sub-prime mortgage crisis that they helped to bring about (by blocking Republican attempts to reform Fannie & Freddie) tanked the economy.

If the Republicans don’t agree to all my very reasonable demands, I will be reluctantly forced to begin eliminating social security recipients with drone strikes, euthanizing medicaid patients, and providing automatic weapons to illegal aliens. The ensuing chaos will be the fault of the Republicans, Fox News and their demonic, brain-washed followers.

Here’s why I’m not worried about sequestration – it’s like the school budget. When our figure-head Superintendent doesn’t get his way with the budget, he announces that we’ll need to cut after-school sports and the music program. (Note: He does not cut one of his umpteen Assistant Superintendents that actually run the deparments.)

Sane people know that such statements are gross overkill, but since those programs affect almost every kid, it succeeds in mobilizing the mindless majority into outrage about budget cuts. The Super gets his way.

Now to Sequestration: I was told by the WH that my state will lose $24M in educational funding. Divided by county, that equals about $300,000 per county. Out of a proposed budget of $894M in my county alone, that’s not much.

Come to think of it, they could fire the figure-head Superintendent and we’d address two problems.

5) Even though all FY 2009 spending was passed by the Democratic Nancy Pelosi House and Democratic Harry Reid Senate, and the FY 2009 budget, stimulus, Cash for Clunkers, etc. were all signed by Obama, Democrats still want to blame all FY 2009 spending on Bush!

6) By sending FY 2009 spending through the roof and dishonestly blaming Bush, Democrats want the public to think of 2009 as the Republican baseline and that Democrats have now reduced deficit spending to “only” $901 Billion this year. By blaming Bush for all of FY 2009, they dishonestly try to make the multiple-pinocchios claim that Obama has had the lowest rate of increase in spending since World War II:

7) Let us remember that in 2006, 2007, and 2008, Democrats were constantly criticizing Republican deficit spending and made multiple promises that they would be fiscall disciplined with “No More Deficit Spending!”